My apologies for the quality of both these Throwback images, but the scratches on these old photographs are the result of them being tucked away in an album for a whole lot of years!

I try hard to feature images from my past in the industry, but every now and then there's a classic family shot that deserves to be shared. The image on the right is of my Mom and Dad. On the back my mother wrote "March, 6 months pregnant." She's pregnant with me at this point. I also love the shadow of the photographer that shares part of the spotlight. Remember the one rule of thumb in those days was ALWAYS have your subject facing the sun.

In addition to the images themselves, the way my mother cherished every photograph was wonderful. The album is an old wooden album with their names in raised black letters on the front. The pages are all black and she used those lick and stick corners to hold in the prints. She wrote on the back of every image with dates and descriptions.

​Things have changed so much, but remember how long ago this is. Every image, be it good or bad was saved. She never threw out a photograph, because each one was truly magical. Every image was captured on film and was special. In addition, every photograph is of family and friends. I have yet to find any early prints without people in them. It was essentially considered a waste of film to take pictures of anything but people.

I could be wrong, but I remember seeing a picture of somebody's camera in the family and it was an old 620 Kodak folding camera like the one on the right. I don't know if it was the camera that captured this shot of Mom and Dad, but if nothing else it gives you a reference for the time period.

Then, in search of old photos I found this shot of me at six weeks old. I know by this time somebody had given my folks a Brownie Hawkeye, so the printed format was different on the shot of me versus the shot of the two of them.

There's always a point to Throwback Thursday and in this case it's the never-ending reminder about the importance of photographs. My Mom passed away over two years ago and Dad is headed to 93 at the end of this month. These images bring back so many memories. They put an intense smile on his face that even today's technology could never truly capture.

So, it's Throwback Thursday. Take a few minutes to search through some of your old images.

I can certainly relate to this, when I was in my late teens my parents decided to have a clear out which meant getting rid of the some of the old photos. There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, most were rubbish but all were treasured. We didn't get rid of any for another 20 odd years!

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"Why?"

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Authors

Skip Cohen is President of SCU, founder of Marketing Essentials International and past president of Rangefinder Publishing and WPPI. He's been an active participant in the photographic industry since joining Hasselblad USA in 1987 as president. He has co-authored six books on photography and actively supports dozens of projects each year involving photographic education.

Scott Bourne

Scott Bourne was the first Dean of Marketing at SCU. He helped to establish this blog as a resource for aspiring and working professional photographers. He's an educator, artist, author and from time to time you'll see his name on guest posts that are always relevant to photography and marketing!